


silent night

by orphan_account



Category: Perfect Times Eleven
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking, bonding time :'), platonic spooning??, saying fuck a lot, the musical isn't even finished yet but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 04:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jason and Daisy look at the stars.





	silent night

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't a Christmas fic I just have a thing for Christmas song titles
> 
> anyway I was thinkin bout pre-Donovan Long dynamics of Jason and Daisy so here's a sort of hazy vignette, also this was written from 11:45-1:20 am with minimal edits do with that knowledge what you will

Jason takes a swig from his crinkling Dasani bottle. It’s filled with some sort of liquor and Kool-Aid powder (the former from Dr. Morello’s office and the latter from the pantry). He cringes hard as it goes down.

“Daisy, what the fuck kind of alcohol is this?” It tastes absolutely terrible, but the burn at the back of his throat feels nice.

“It’s peppermint Smirnoff,” Daisy says. She’s sitting beside him on the floor, leaning against his bedframe and sipping an identical bottle. “And cherry Kool-Aid mix.”

"Why would you think those two are in any way compatible?"

Daisy gesticulates wildly with her bottle in the dark room. "The old hag only drinks fucking flavored alcohol! This was the only one full enough to dilute with water. Probably because it's a disgusting drink for people who think candy canes should be alcoholic."

Jason tries to lean his head back, but hits it on the hard wooden frame of his bed.

"Ow! Fuck. Don't we have any other Kool-Aid flavors?" He chokes down another gulp.

"No," Daisy says, sipping pensively. He doesn't know how she isn't cringing with every repulsive taste of the Kool-Aid-vodka-thing, but she's somehow downed half of her water bottle. "Keep drinking, or else you won't get drunk."

"Getting drunk is a stupid fucking idea, Daisy."

"Says you, pussy." She drinks even more. "It's not that bad. Just pinch your nose and you'll be fine."

Jason takes a hesitant sniff from the bottle's opening. "This shit smells like a five-year-old's puke on Christmas."

"Take it or leave it. I—" Daisy breaks off for a second and swallows, looking dazed— "I personally wanna- wanna- get lit more than I want to drink something that tastes good."

"Get lit? What is this, fucking Riverdale?" But Jason plugs his nose and chugs from the bottle for a few seconds.

"Fuck!" His throat is burning, but he feels good. Warm inside. It's nice. 

They sit for a couple minutes, just staring at the ceiling. Daisy leans on his shoulder, sagging like a rag doll. She holds the bottle to her lips until what little was left is gone and coursing through her veins. Jason pushes Daisy off after a few minutes, claiming shoulder cramps ("Is that even a thing?" Daisy wonders) and she hops up onto his bed. She feels unbalanced and the slightest bit dizzy, but manages to crawl across his painfully neat bedspread and lean her face against the window right by the foot of the bed— the only source of light in the room. She can hear Jason crinkling his bottle. _Crunch, crunch, crunch._ She hopes that means he's drinking it. 

The window is blissfully cool on Daisy's face, which by now is flushed with alcohol. She thinks that the cool evening wind will feel even better, so she starts to unlock the window and crank it open. Just as she's starting to get it to move— this house is old and creaky as fuck— she hears Jason _crunch_ especially loudly. She looks over her shoulder to see him resting his chin on the mattress, looking pissed in more ways than one. 

"Shh!" he whispers, like an asshole. "She'll hear you, stupid."

"What she's going to hear is alla your fucking crinkling, aaasole," snaps Daisy, not quite nailing all of the consonants. Jason gets up on the bed and crawls towards her, but suddenly freezes. "What?" she asks.

Jason's eyes widen. "Footsteps. Don't you hear them?"

Daisy listens. 

"I don't hear a fucking thing."

"You're also drunk offa your ass."

"Yeah? You too, bitch."

Jason just sighs, and sits down on his bed. He dejectedly nurses his bottle until it's gone, if only to make Daisy's taunts true. His paranoia has resided— perhaps he was hearing the thump of his heartbeat extra-loud.

Fuck. He really is getting drunk.

Daisy succeeds in getting the window open, and leans her head out. She looks up at the moon, just short of full, and the bright stars surrounding it. So much brighter than in the city. Or so she hears. She's only been to the city a few times, but it always feels claustrophobic. Like the people and the buildings are compounding with the voices in her head so loudly that they drown even the stars out. 

Wait. Stars don't make noise. Well, that's still how it feels to her.

"Psst. Psst, Jason, c'mere." It appears as if Daisy feels amiable towards him again. He obediently crawls over and sticks his head out the window alongside hers.

"What now?" he asks.

"Look up," she says. Jason tries, but her long hair blows into his eyes and mouth. He indignantly spits it out, but there're still a lot of blonde strands (that certainly don't belong to him) covering his face. 

"Shit! Daze, could you please move your fucking hair?" 

She sweeps it over one shoulder, leaving it to blow mercifully away from Jason's face. "Better? Now look up." He does.

"I want," she starts, still gazing up at the stars. "I want to ride a roller coaster all the way up to the fucking stars."

"Why?"

"Just. Get past all this fucking atmosphere shit." Her voice has slowed down into a spacey, low rumble. "Imagine it! You just go up and up and up, and it feels like you're going to be going up forever, and the sky is so fucking dark.... But then you reach the fucking stars, and there's a moment where you're just sitting there, with the stars, waiting to drop, and I bet that is just so fu- fucking peaceful." She stops talking. 

Jason looks at her. Her eyes are shining. 

"But then..." she says. She inhales sharply. "I guess you have to come down again. But imagine the fucking... um..... the... what's the word... the fucking thrill! The thrill of that!"

Daisy releases her head and looks down, putting her arms on the windowsill. Jason looks up, tries to see what she sees. He just sees regular old stars. Granted, slightly wiggly stars, but he'll attribute that to the vodka.

"I don't know," he says. "I've never been much for roller coasters."

"Fucking buzzkill," Daisy mutters as she pulls her head back into Jason's room and crawls over to sit at the head of his bed. Jason turns to sit at the end. He leaves the window open— it feels good. Even in his light pajamas, he's hot and sweaty. 

Daisy shifts so that her head is on his pillow and curls up into a comma. Her fingers look as if they are clutching something that isn't there. What it might be, Jason has no idea.

"Jase?" she says, quieter than she has been since she handed him a bottle at 11:57. He looks at the display of his Breakfast Club clock (purchased at the inflated price of $32 on Redbubble at age 13). Inexplicably, it is approaching 2 or 3 (he can't really tell, his eyesight is blurry at best without contacts and three times worse with alcohol). 

"Yeah?" Jason realizes she hasn't called him "Jase" since the first year he started living here. 

Daisy motions him towards her. He crawls over and sits by her, but she keeps motioning down.

Oh. She wants him to— okay. 

Jason curls his body around Daisy's and just kind of holds her there, awkwardly. He feels stupid— like a stand-in for Mark, encroaching on some weird family ritual. 

Come to think of it, he never thought Mark particularly liked physical contact. 

Hesitantly, Jason puts his head in between Daisy's shoulder and neck. She grabs his hand and touches his ring, slowly, thoughtfully. He moves her hand away and fingers the familiar metal circle, rubbing it, trying to remember what it feels like to go without it.

He feels... peaceful, somehow. Like what she was saying about being among the stars, just... away from it all. 

Jason slides off the ring carefully, ready to slide it back on at any moment.

The voices are gone. 

The house is silent.

It's just his breath and Daisy's. He thinks Daisy is asleep. 

And they just lie there, the only sounds being their breathing and the slight breeze coming through the window. Jason thinks it's the most tranquil he's ever seen this stupid house. 

But if Morello finds him and Daisy together tomorrow, they're dead (regardless of their respective sexual orientations). He puts the ring back on and meticulously extricates himself from Daisy's embrace. He still feels drunk, but steadies himself enough to quietly hide the empty water bottles, pad to Daisy's bedroom and lay down on top of her ridiculous, bright yellow, ruffly mountain of a bedspread. Looking up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on her ceiling, he thinks he gets what she meant about riding a roller coaster to the stars. Up that high, how could the dead people possibly bother you?

He tries to keep looking at the fake stars, but can't stop his eyes from closing of their own accord. It's the first easy sleep he's had in years. 

No voices, no nightmares, just quiet.


End file.
